


The Steps

by flawlessassholes



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Book of Nile, F/M, Getting Together, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, POV Alternating, Panic Attacks, References to Addiction, Relapsing, Slow Build, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-27 14:34:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30124275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawlessassholes/pseuds/flawlessassholes
Summary: “Book, look at yourself,” he says. “This is fucking sad. They’ve already lost their mom. Now they’re gonna lose you, too?”Booker can’t look at Joe. He can’t see those eyes— Sophie’s eyes— so concerned and so sad and so disappointed. “Fuck off,” he says. “Get the fuck out of my house.”Joe shakes his head. He bends over and saddles a duffel bag on his shoulder. “You want your sons back?” Joe says. “Get sober. Then we’ll talk.”Fourteen months after the death of his wife, Booker hits rock bottom. But he didn't know that getting sober would mean gaining so much more.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Booker | Sebastien le Livre's Wife, Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Nile Freeman, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 42
Kudos: 78





	1. Step 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a vivid description of vomiting. If that squicks you or triggers you, the description is in the third paragraph of the second section.

_Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol— that our lives had become unmanageable._

_—_

_Sophie’s laughter outshines the midday sun. They took the boys to Martinique for their anniversary, and she watches from their picnic blanket as Ely and Sam take turns carrying J.P. on their shoulders._

_«Not too deep!» She calls out. Then, still watching the boys, she says, «They’re too rough with him.»_

_«They’re brothers,» he says. «Brothers roughhouse.» He can’t take his eyes off of her. In the oceanside breeze, her curly black hair has a life of its own, dancing in the wind and brushing over her cheeks._

_«Maybe we should join them?» He asks. Sophie eyes him suspiciously and squeals when he scoops her into his arms. He tries to ignore how thin she’s become— they promised to not think about it, on vacation— and he carries her to the shoreline._

_«Sébastien!» She laughs, and it’s the most beautiful sound in the world. «Sébastien put me down!»_

_«I cannot, my love, for it is in our vows, I must carry you wherever I go,» he says. He tries to keep a straight face to make her laugh, but it falters as she plants a wet kiss on his cheek._

_«You’re a damn romantic,» she says. «You’re going to throw me in, aren’t you?»_

_«I’m afraid so,» He says in a grave tone._

_«If you must,» Sophie says, matching his seriousness, but the corners of her mouth are twitching upwards. «I’m going to look like a drowned poodle.»_

_«No my love,» he says, pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth. «You’ll look stunning, as always.»_

_And then he tosses her into the water. She’s laughing when she resurfaces, pushing her wet curls back._

_«Sébastien!» She laughs as she pushes her wet curls out of her face. Her smile is as deep as the Caribbean._

_«Papa!» J.P. swims towards his mother, grabbing onto her shoulders. «Papa, come swim!»_

_Ely and Sam join in, calling for him to come to play in the water. He holds his hands up in acquiescence. «Alright, alright,» he says and then dives in._

_He begins a swift breaststroke, swimming under the waves to Sophie, but the undertow keeps pulling him away._

_The once-turquoise water turns black as night as if God has turned off the lights. The warm, tropical water turns to ice, painful against his skin._

_Sophie is under the surface now, the boys gone, her hair floating above him. She gasps, choking, her face turning blue as her air bubbles towards the surface._

_«Sophie!» He screams. «Soufia!» but she can’t hear him underwater, he can’t swim fast enough, he keeps getting pulled back, and she’s choking, she can’t breathe._

_She’s staring straight ahead, her hair shorn now, her face gaunt, and her lips cracked. «Sébastien,» she says. «Sébastien, please—»_

Booker wakes up gasping and soaking wet. 

He rubs at his throat and reaches for the bottle of vodka on the coffee table. His hand swipes uselessly through the air a few times before he finally opens his eyes, pushing his sopping wet hair out of the way. 

Joe is standing beside the couch. He places a bucket on the coffee table and crosses his arms. 

Booker groans, rubbing at his face. “What time is it—” 

“3:45.” 

“A.M.?” 

“P.M.” 

That causes him to sit up, but he sits up too quickly, and a wave of nausea washes over him. He takes the bucket from the coffee table and vomits in it. 

“The boys—” he gasps, once his stomach has settled a bit, and the room stops spinning. “I have to pick the boys up—” 

“Ely called me at work,” Joe says. “You never showed, and he used the phone in the school’s office. Nicky picked them up and took them to practice.” 

Booker has seen his brother-in-law angry before. He’s seen his brother-in-law pissed off, vicious, and fuming. But he’s never seen this look of barely-suppressed fury in Joe’s eyes that would be sobering if Booker wasn’t so drunk he couldn’t see straight. 

“Shit,” he says. “Thank you, I’ll— give me a minute, I’ll shower, and I’ll—” 

“What?” Joe asks. “You’ll do what? Go pick them up? You’d get in a car, as fucked up as you are?” 

He rubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “No, no— Nicky— Nicky could bring them back—”

“Back here?” Joe laughs, but it sounds cold and doesn’t reach his eyes. “So Sam can clean up your shit while Ely makes J.P. dinner? While you sit on the couch, unshowered and unshaven and drunk?” 

“That’s not— fuck off, Joe,” Booker says. He looks around the house now, at the living room that is covered in unfolded laundry, the television that’s playing CBC on mute, the coffee table covered in empty beer bottles, the blinds that are pulled shut. It feels like midnight in the living room, not midafternoon. 

“Nicky’s going to pick them up from the rink,” Joe says, and his tone is low and careful, a tone that says _I am not fucking around._ “Nicky’s picking them up, and he’s taking them back to our place. I’m just here to get their clothes, J.P.‘s teddy. Sam’s inhaler.” 

Booker looks up sharply. “What the fuck?” 

“You’re fucking wasted, Book; you can’t take care of them like this.”

“So you’re taking my sons away?” Booker stands up. It takes a few tries. 

“Yes,” Joe says. “They deserve better than seeing their father drink himself to death.” 

Booker lunges at him. His right fist misses Joe by a mile as the man easily steps out of the way, and Booker falls into the coffee table, the wood collapsing under his weight and the glass shattering beneath him. 

Joe takes a step forward, and his expression is more than outraged— it’s— it’s _disgusted._

“Book, look at yourself,” he says. “This is fucking _sad._ They’ve already lost their mom. Now they’re gonna lose you, too?” 

Booker can’t look at Joe. He can’t see those eyes— Sophie’s eyes— so concerned and so sad and so disappointed. “Fuck off,” he says. “Get the fuck out of my house.” 

Joe shakes his head. He bends over and saddles a duffel bag on his shoulder. “You want your sons back?” Joe says. “Get sober. Then we’ll talk.” 

Joe slams the door shut behind him, and it echoes through the empty house. 

Booker rolls over, glass crunching underneath him, and throws up again.

—

It takes Booker an embarrassingly long time to get himself up the house’s stairs to the shower. When he strips off his clothes, he discovers that he isn’t just wet from Joe throwing water on him— he’s pissed himself as well, which means he’ll have to clean the couch. 

He throws up again in the shower and watched the vomit clog the drain until he mashes it down with his toe. He allows himself to be miserable until the water stops scalding his back and turns ice cold.

His vision is still swimming from the liquor soaking his brain, and he stumbles over the lip of the shower, tries to correct his balance but fails. He grabs onto something to stop his fall, but that something is the towel rack, which he rips clean off the wall as he crashes into the floor, his still-wet body slapping as he hits the tile. 

He groans and thinks not for the first time that if he just lays on the bathroom floor long enough, God will be merciful enough to put him out of his misery. 

But this God— the one that Booker doesn’t believe in— he’s a vengeful, petty fuck who has a taste for slapstick comedy and is probably laughing his ass off at Booker right now like he’s a clip on Funniest Home Videos. 

He’s probably sharing a bucket of popcorn with Peter and Paul and Mother Theresa, and they’re all plotting about how they can make his life more miserable. 

He manages to get his feet under him and pull himself up to the sink. He’s just showered, but he splashes cold water over his face as if it’ll help. 

When he looks up at himself, all he sees is red. Whether from grief or inebriation, his eyes have been bloodshot since the funeral. 

Sophie loved his eyes. His baby blues, she called them. He can’t see the blue past his dilated pupils and red veins. 

He needs to shave, but if he tried to do that in his state, he’d likely bleed out from nicking himself with his razor. 

Instead, he stumbles into the bedroom, ignoring the bed he hasn’t slept in for a year, and opens the bureau.

He’s out of clean underwear. _Fuck._

It’s November in Montreal and freezing outside, and Booker pulls on a pair of Hawaiian-print swim trunks so he can make himself something resembling dinner.

He dumps the last of the frozen chicken nuggets onto a plate and shoves them into the microwave. He eats them, standing up at the counter. They’re dinosaur-shaped, infernally hot on the outside and raw and cold in the center. 

Hawaiian trunks. Dino nuggets. A burnt tongue. 

He looks up at the ceiling. « _I suppose you think this is funny?»_

There’s no response from the heavens, so Booker finishes his laughable attempt at dinner and collapses back on the couch— only to remember that he pissed himself earlier, and that the couch is leather, and that he is now sitting in his own urine. 

He bets Mother Theresa thinks this is _extra_ funny. She’s probably rolling on the floor with Pope John Paul II with tears in their eyes. Fucking _chortling._

By the time he’s cleaned up his piss and found a pair of sweatpants from the unfolded laundry, it’s almost nine, and his phone is ringing.

It’s Joe, and he almost throws his phone across the room. He swears and answers with a swipe of his thumb. “Yes?” 

“Papa?” 

It’s J.P., and Booker softens immediately at his youngest’s voice. « _Yes, yes, I’m here,»_ he says, switching to French. J.P. always prefers to speak in French close to bedtime. 

_«I just wanted to say goodnight,»_ J.P. says. He’s just turned six, and his voice is soft and edged with sleep. « _Uncle Nicky made spaghetti for dinner.»_

_«Was it good?»_

J.P. scoffs. « _Duh. And Uncle Joe didn’t even make me finish my broccoli. And he let me watch the Habs game, all the way to the second intermission.»_

 _«Sounds like fun,»_ Booker says. 

_«Thank you for letting us sleep over! Uncle Nicky says it’s a special treat, like last summer when we stayed for a bit.»_

Booker doesn’t know what to say to that, to his son’s innocence. _«I’m glad you’re having fun.»_

_«Yeah and— oh, Sam wants to talk to you. Night Papa!»_

He barely returns the sentiment when Sam’s voice comes through, lit up with excitement. “Dad, you should’ve seen me in practice today! I saved almost every shot during the shootout, and Coach said I did great!” 

“That’s great, Sammy.” Nearing ten, Sam is going through a phase where he refuses to speak French. “Did he say anything about the next tournament?” 

“Yeah, that he’ll definitely start me in the first round— oh, I gotta go, Uncle Joe wants to talk to you. Night!” 

Sam must hand over the phone at top speed because he hears Joe fondly telling him not to run. “They’re tyrants, these three,” Joe mutters, but it sounds like he’s smiling. 

“Thank you for letting me talk to them,” Booker says, and he blinks, and he’s crying again. _Fuck._

“Oh, Book,” Joe says softly. “They love you so much. I love you so much. Even when you’ve got your head so far up your ass, you’re eating shit.” 

Booker tries to laugh at that, a miserable gasp that could barely pass. Joe is quiet for a moment, and Booker has to ask, even though he knows the answer. “Ely didn’t—" 

Joe sighs. “He’s fourteen, Book. He… he needs time.” 

“I know.” 

“He loves you.” 

Booker isn’t so sure about that. He loves his firstborn more than anything in this world, but since Sophie died, his son has drifted further and further away from him. 

“Nicky emailed you a list of resources,” Joe says. “A few groups that meet regularly. A clinic.” 

“So you’re serious, then?” Booker says. “I can’t see them until—"

“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life,” Joe says. “Soufia made me promise that I’d take care of you and the boys. This is me taking care of you. You _need_ help.” 

“I’m— I’m fine. It’s just been a rough—" 

Joe scoffs. “What, a rough week? A rough month? A rough _year?_ It’s been fourteen months since she died, and I can count the number of days you’ve been completely sober on two hands.” 

“She was my _wife,_ Joe,” Booker says. “I’m grieving.” 

“No, _I’m_ grieving. She was my sister. My _twin._ We shared _everything._ Nicky holds me every night as I cry myself to sleep. I’m grieving. You— you’re killing yourself.” 

He doesn’t have anything to say to that. So instead, he says, “Sam has tutoring tomorrow. Make sure he brings his flashcards.” 

“They’re in his backpack, I checked.” Joe pauses. “Goodnight, Book. I love you. You’re my brother, and I just want to see you well.” 

He doesn’t say anything to that, either, and after a few quiet moments, Joe hangs up.

He tries to fall asleep that night without liquor, but by three a.m., he finishes a bottle of whiskey he finds underneath the couch.

 _Tomorrow,_ he thinks. _I’ll start tomorrow._

_—_

He wakes the next day with a miserable hangover, which is not unusual, and an email from his boss, which _is_ unusual.

He’s been on an extended sabbatical since Sophie’s death, and the chair of his department wants to talk about his return for the spring semester. 

He forces himself to shave and put on work-appropriate clothes, drinks half the carafe of coffee straight from the percolator before dumping the other half into a to-go cup, and spends thirty minutes looking for his keys. 

He can’t find them, and he’s going to be late, so he takes the metro. Thirty minutes later, he joins the throngs of students and professors streaming into McGill’s campus.

He tucks his chin into his scarf and makes his way to Leacock, the building that houses McGill’s humanities and social science departments. It’s a brutalist monstrosity that Booker hates, but he’s spent so much time in it that— begrudgingly— it feels like a second home. 

His boss, Andy— beloved professor of history, possible immortal being— is waiting outside his office. 

“I broke in,” she says by way of greeting. “Your pothos has claimed the computer as its own, and the cactus is dead as dirt.” 

“Hello to you too, Andy.” 

“Hi. You look like shit. Let’s talk in my office; yours smells like stale Timbits and depression.” 

Booker sighs and follows Andy down the hall to her office, which is much nicer than his. It’s covered in maps that she swears are originals, and there’s an actual, honest-to-god Labrys above her window. A few years ago, Booker printed out a drawing of a headless man and scribbled _WHAT HAPPENS WHEN STUDENTS DON’T USE CHICAGO STYLE_ in sharpie and attached to its gleaming blade.

It’s still there, which makes Booker smile in that barely-there way of his, what Joe calls his ‘white person smile.’ 

“Margaret is due on the 18th of December,” Andy says, crossing her arms and kicking her black boots up on her desk like she’s a miscreant in a biker gang instead of a tenured professor at an elite institution. 

“Do you need me to sign a card?” Booker asks. “Is it a boy? Girl? A peer-reviewed journal article?”

Andy doesn’t laugh, even though that joke usually kills amongst academics. “Booker.” 

“Andy.”

“She’s going to be off next semester, which means the department won’t have a European history professor.” 

“If I recall correctly, you can also teach European history,” Booker says. Andy’s list of specializations is so long they have to link to a separate document on the department’s website.

Andy glares at him. “I’m teaching a full course load, and I’ve got an advisee who is defending in May. It’s time to get back in the saddle, Booker.” 

Booker rubs his hand over his mouth. He did a shit job shaving, and there’s still a patch of stubble to the right of his mouth. “Andy, I don’t know…” 

Andy sighs. “Book, I wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t necessary. If I could keep you on sabbatical for the rest of your life, I would. But I can’t. And you need routine.” 

Booker rolls his eyes. “Christ. I’m _fine.”_

Andy snorts. “You know what they say in A.A., right? Fine stands for fucked-up, insecure, neurotic, emotional.” 

Booker doesn’t say anything, so Andy stands and pulls a book down from the top shelf of one of her many overflowing bookshelves. She tosses it to him and throws it at him. It’s a worn book, obviously well-read. Embossed on the cover is the title _ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS_ in a large, old-fashioned font.

“Fucking—” Booker shakes his head. “First Joe, then Nicky’s emailing me every rehab facility in Quebec, and now you—“ 

“Yeah, Book,” Andy says. “We love you. We want you to get better. We already lost one member of our family. We can’t lose you, too.” 

Booker closes his eyes. “Did Joe tell you he took the boys?” 

“We talked about it,” Andy says. “I said it would be a wake-up call. When Quỳnh left me, that’s what got my ass out of the bottle and into meetings.” 

Booker closes his eyes. Then, like he can’t control himself— because he _can’t_ control himself— he leans forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, the heels of his hands boring into his eyes, and his fingers pulling at his hair. 

“She would be so disappointed in me. She’d be disgusted by me. She would _hate_ me for letting it get this bad,” Booker says, his throat raw like he’s eaten gravel. 

“No, she wouldn’t,” Andy says. “She would understand, and love you, and forgive you, and want you to get better. Because she was an infinitely better person than all of us, and her soul was too kind and too good for this shitty fucking world.” 

A sound wrenches from Booker’s throat, something raw and pained and miserable. He stands, furious with himself and this whole fucking shit situation, and throws the book against the wall, knocking one of Andy’s many diplomas to the door.

He looks at Andy. She stares back like she knows his pain, like she would carry him out of hell herself if she could. Booker can’t look at her, so he turns away, rubbing at his eyes until he sees spots floating in his vision.

A moment passes, then Andy’s hand is on his shoulder. She pulls him around gently and presses the book into his hands. “My old group meets on Wednesday evenings. I’ll go with you tonight.” 

He can’t say anything, so he just nods and tries to hold it together when Andy pulls him into her arms. 

Like with everything else in his life, he fails.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Thank you so much for reading! I'm really excited to share this fic with y'all and go on this journey with y'all. :-) 
> 
> Endless thanks to my beta, [Marivan](www.mprosperosprite.tumblr.com) who is a dream beta and endlessly thoughtful and kind. 
> 
> Much of this fic comes from personal experience with family and A.A., so please trust that I'm trying my best to represent recovery accurately. If you have any questions/comments/concerns, hit me up on tumblr, [I'm flawlessassholes](flawlessassholes.tumblr.com). 
> 
> I love comments, kudos, ANYTHING! Long or short, even just a heart! I promise to respond to each and every one! 
> 
> I'll be back with chapter two (where we meet Nile!!!) soon :-)


	2. Step 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _She loves every single member of her little A.A. family because she’s_ invested _in them. She’s invested in their lives, their health, their recovery because they_ share, _and they_ want _to get better. And Nile knows that in return, they’re just as invested in her. That’s the fucking social contract of Alcoholics Anonymous, and she’s about to go full fucking_ Leviathan _on this asshole._

_Step 2: We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity._

—

_They’re all lounging around the barracks, just chilling, bitching about the heat, and gossiping. Jordan’s telling the same story she always tells, about the time in Basic she accidentally called the guy running drills mom, and he started crying because he missed his mom, and now they’d been dating for three years._

_Nile’s laughing her ass off, and Dizzy’s clutching at her stomach. “Nile,” Dizzy says, tears in her eyes. “Tell us that story about the time in— the time in Delaram—”_

_“Oh, when I pranked the guys, and they bitched for days about the glitter in their helmets?” Nile says, and her cheeks hurt from smiling so much._

_“They were such babies about it!” Dizzy says. “Fuckin’ macho ass Marine gunners, bitching about rainbow glitter!”_

_“Well, I never actually told you what happened after,” Nile says peevishly._

_Jordan sits up. “What? Spill.”_

_“Sarge took me aside, and he was like, ‘Corporal Freeman!’ And I thought for sure my ass was grass, you know? But he’s like, ‘they’ve been whining all week, thank you for teaching them a lesson.’ And then he shakes my hand. And he turns around, and he’s got rainbow glitter covering his ass!”_

_Jordan laughs so hard she snorts, and Dizzy makes a sound like the penguin with a broken squeaker in Toy Story._

_Nile laughs too, but the breath catches in her throat, and she starts choking. Dizzy and Jordan start choking, too, their hands coming to their throats. Blood spills out from behind their hands as they try to hold the sinew and muscle and skin of their throats together._

_Nile stands, panicking, looking around for help. Her dad is there, in dress blues. She opens her mouth to call for him, but instead of yelling ‘Dad!’ blood starts pouring out of her mouth, onto her fatigues. She puts her hands to her throat, and all she feels is blood and her weakening pulse. “Dad—”_

Nile wakes up gasping and soaking wet. 

Her alarm is blaring, and she’s drenched in a cold sweat. She shudders, pulling the sweatshirt she slept in over her head and throwing it on the floor. There’s a glass of water next to her bed, and she reaches for it, gulping it down. Her hand comes to her throat. The long, silvery scar is still there, the skin still bumpy after all these years. 

It will always be there. 

She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and counts down from ten. 

By negative four, her panic has resided a little, and she picks up her phone. There’s a text from her advisor, Professor Al-Kaysani, who demands that she calls him Joe. 

_Joe:  
Can we push our meeting to noon? Running late. Family stuff._

_Nile:  
Np, see you at 12. _

_Joe:  
You’re the best. I’ll bring lunch. _

Well, that clears up her morning. Nile doesn’t have class until 2, and then group after that, so she can actually eat breakfast. 

She took a shower last night, but this morning’s nightmare calls for another if she doesn’t want to walk around all day feeling gross. She can barely afford utilities as it is in her tiny apartment, but she lets herself luxuriate in the hot water. It’s gonna be another freezing November day, and Nile wants to feel as warm as possible for as long as possible. 

She remembers what she told her mom when she got into McGill. _I’m Chicago, born and bred! How much colder could it be in Canada?_

The answer was _a lot colder._

She turns off the water and wraps herself in a towel, but her feet hit the tile of the bathroom floor, and a shiver runs through her body. One day, when she’s rich, she’s going to get heated floors in her bathrooms. 

Then she reminds herself that she’s studying to become an art history professor, and she’ll never be rich— so instead, she puts on slippers and her robe, the fuzzy one that used to be her dad’s. 

It’s rare that she isn’t rushing out of the apartment for a morning meeting or that she isn’t holding office hours for her undergrads. So she can make herself a real breakfast of peanut butter toast with banana slices and her first of many cups of coffee. As she chews and looks out the window at the fog that’s blanketing Montreal, Nile has a bit of a moment. 

There she is, sitting in her shitty studio apartment in a foreign country, eating her breakfast. She couldn’t have imagined this six years ago when she struggled through speech therapy or four years ago when she stole her brother’s tutoring earnings to buy vodka.

It’s a good morning, that’s all. Her nightmare— the one that comes back whenever Nile actually manages to sleep— feels inconsequential on the day ahead.

She dresses in her favorite cable-knit sweater and jeans and even puts on a little makeup. She’s usually too busy to bother with it, but it’s nice to swipe some eyeliner and mascara on to distract from the bags under her eyes. 

She fills a massive to-go cup with coffee, with enough almond milk and sugar that it barely _tastes_ like coffee, grabs her backpack, cranks up the Frank Ocean coming through her headphones, and starts walking to campus. 

Montreal, despite being annoyingly cold, is also annoyingly lovely. She doesn’t live too far away from the Arts building. It’s this beautiful, classical building— the oldest on campus— and she’s astounded that she gets to study and work in it. Others on campus aren’t so lucky. Nile is taking an elective with the Classics department in Leacock, which is a hideous brutalist monstrosity. 

The door to her office is half-open. Well, it’s not _her_ office. She shares it with Dev Singh from Vancouver, who is already inside. Also, it’s not so much an office as it is a supply closet with two desks and a spotty WiFi connection. 

He looks up at her with a smile. “Morning! I thought you were getting here at 11?” 

It’s 11:50. Dev has a not-so-secret crush on her, which would be flattering if he weren’t nearly six years younger and reminded Nile of her brother. “My meeting with Joe got pushed back.” 

“Oh,” Dev says. “Hey, a bunch of us are going out tonight to that new club that just opened. You should come.” 

Nile sighs. 

See, she _wants_ to go. She moved to Montreal in August, and she hasn’t made any real friends yet, just Dev and Joe, and her mom says her advisor doesn’t count. But meeting new people always takes place in bars and clubs. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Dev’s barely 22— he should enjoy going out like a normal twenty-something.

It’s Nile who has the problem. 

It would be so easy to say yes. She would ask for a club soda at the bar and nurse it all night. But inevitably, someone would goad her into shots or take a sip of their martini, and Nile would think, _one sip won’t hurt,_ and then she’d be back to square one. 

Again. 

No, it’s easier to stay away, even if it means she’s bitterly lonely and watching Netflix all night. Besides— she has her meeting tonight. She couldn’t go even if she wanted to. 

“Sorry,” she says. “Study group.” 

“With who?” Dev says, and there’s genuine confusion in his tone. “All the other people in our program are coming out tonight.” 

Thankfully, Joe pops his head into the office before she can answer. His cheeks are flushed from the cold, and he’s a little out of breath. 

“Nile!” He says. “I’m here. Can you help me carry something to my office?” 

_Thank God._ “Yeah!” She says brightly. “See you later, Dev.” 

She closes the door to the office, and Joe hands her a hockey bag. 

“What’s this?” She asks, saddling the bag. “Do you play hockey?” 

“Not since I was a kid,” Joe says. “No, that’s my nephew’s. Nicky’s swinging by after a meeting to pick it up.” Joe fumbles with the keys to his office, and Nile looks at his door, covered in so many posters the plaque that says _PROFESSOR YUSUF AL-KAYSANI, ART HISTORY_ is barely visible. 

Her favorite is the one of him and Nicky painted as the couple in Klimt’s _The Kiss._

“Aha!” Joe exclaims as the door swings open. “I swear to God, the key changes every day.” 

“It’s probably the ghosts,” Nile says gravely. 

“Oh, it’s definitely the ghosts,” Joe says as he gestures for her to follow him inside.

Joe’s office is unequivocally Nile’s favorite place on campus. It’s so welcoming, with beautiful tapestries and plants and framed photos of his family covering every surface. He says it was a lot sadder before his late sister decorated it. 

Nile sets the hockey bag by the door, and her backpack goes next to the massive philodendron named Jean Béleafeau. When she first met Joe, he introduced her to every plant in his office, calling them his colleagues. _They’re all named after Habs players,_ he said. Then he pointed to a spider plant. _That’s Jacques Plante— I didn’t even have to do a pun for that one!_

She collapses into one of Joe’s vintage velvet chairs, which is absurdly comfortable for how ornate it is. 

_Soph was so good at finding stuff like that. She was a bloodhound for good chairs,_ Joe told her once. He talks about her a lot— his twin sister that he lost fourteen months ago to ovarian cancer. She’s all over the office in lovingly framed photos of her and Joe smiling goofily at the camera as kids, as teenagers, at Joe’s wedding. 

“Sorry again about being late; we’re watching my nephews for a bit,” Joe says. “But, on the bright side, I did bring you leftover spaghetti.” 

She sits up. “Nicky’s spaghetti? With his meatballs?” 

“Of course.” 

Nile not-so-subtly pumps her fist. Her favorite thing about having Joe as an advisor is that he’s cool and only like, a decade older than her, so he remembers being a starving grad student and brings his husband’s excellent Italian cooking for her whenever possible. 

Joe laughs. “You’re lucky there’s any left. I thought my eldest nephew was going to eat it all.” 

Nile blinks. “Wait, how many nephews do you have?” 

“Three.” 

“All boys?” Nile asks, her eyebrows shooting up. “Damn. Kudos to your sister.” 

“She was a saint, believe me,” Joe says, and his face falls. He’s quiet for a moment before he turns one of the frames on his desk around. It’s a photo of three boys that look almost exactly like Joe but with baby faces. The eldest and the middle are grinning and holding brightly colored plastic shovels. The youngest, Joe, and Nicky are smiling from where they’re buried in the sand at a beach.

“Awww,” Nile coos. “They’re so cute!” And she means it. They’re _seriously_ adorable, with masses of brown, curly hair and big blue eyes. 

“Aren’t they?” Joe says with a fond smile. “Ely is fourteen, Sam is almost ten, and J.P. just turned six.” 

“Those are some white-ass names, Yusuf.” He once told her that he goes by Joe because, after 9/11, he and Sophie chose more ‘North American’ names, which Nile thinks is bullshit, but also completely understands. 

Joe rolls his eyes. “Their father is very French, but I’ll have you know Elyès and Wassam are named for my grandfathers. Jean-Pierre is after his dad’s uncle.” 

“So why are they staying over? Why aren’t they with this very French father?” Nile asks, looking away from the picture. 

Joe frowns. His hand comes to his mouth, running over his lips and beard. “Their father— I love him, he’s my best friend, but he’s— he’s drinking himself to death. Ely called me yesterday afternoon from his school and said that he never showed for pickup and it was the second time this week and that Ely would just walk them all home like he did on Monday, but they had hockey practice—” Joe cuts himself off, shaking his head. “I went over to his house, and he was passed out on the couch surrounded by bottles, completely shitfaced. I had to get the boys out of there. I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do, but I promised my sister—” 

Joe cuts himself off again. It looks like there’s tears in his eyes. He wipes at his face with his hands and visibly resets. “Anyway, remind me what this meeting is about.” 

It’s a clear change of subject, and Nile is more than eager to help out. Joe’s brother-in-law’s situation feels _too_ familiar— not that Joe knows that. 

So, she says, “I just wanted to hang out with my advisor!” Which is true. “But also, there’s this conference in January—”

— 

After Joe complains about this particular conference for an hour, he vows to find the funding for her trip. Then they spend too long gossiping about undergrads, and Nile barely makes it to class on time. It’s a lecture on Rodin that she genuinely finds fascinating, but it seems to drag on forever. After, she gets a latte from her favorite cafe and walks two blocks over to the community center. 

She’s early— only Father Thomas is there, setting folding metal chairs into a circle. 

At Nile’s first meeting in Montreal, she thought Father Thomas was there to be a spiritual guide and lead their meetings, but he’s in recovery, just like her. He told her that he decided to get sober after a parishioner complained about a drunkard sleeping in the church cemetery. He awoke one morning to realize that _he_ was the drunkardwho had passed out after another bender. 

Father Thomas is such a cool dude. 

“Nile!” He calls out. “Come help an old man with the chairs.” 

Nile laughs and sets her backpack and coffee down on her favorite chair— the one with a highly detailed penis drawn in sharpie on the seat, which also happens to be one of the few that doesn’t wobble. 

By the time Father Thomas and Nile arrange the chairs in a circle, the usual suspects have begun to trickle in. 

There’s Marta, a woman in her early thirties who joked about being a wine mom until she found herself mixing tequila and Moscato and realized she had a problem. There’s Nat, who kept having their top surgery postponed because they couldn’t stay sober. James and Jacob, the undergrads from McGill who are best friends, realized that parties weren’t much fun if you couldn’t remember them the next day. Maxime, a 20-year-old hockey player who talks about the toxic drinking culture of the QMJHL when he’s not traveling for games and tournaments. Alaine, the father of five daughters (and grandfather to eight granddaughters), has been sober for thirty years but still comes to meetings every week without fail. Henry, Ngozi, Walter— they all come in, shrug off their coats, pull out their books, and take their seats in the circle. 

Finally, just as the clock turns to six, the door opens once more. It’s Andy, who swings by every couple of weeks to check in now that she’s been sober for a few years, and someone new. A man, maybe early forties, with bloodshot eyes and hunched shoulders. He’s wearing khakis and a button-down shirt, and everything is _beyond_ wrinkled. Nile bets his _socks_ are wrinkled. 

Nile and Father Thomas only set twelve chairs. 

She stands and walks to the side of the room to get another, placing it next to the last open seat. The man shakes his head. “I can sit over there—” 

“Booker,” Andy says, with a serious look and a tone that brokers no bullshit. “Sit.” 

The man— Booker— sits. 

Alaine usually leads the meetings. He turns to Andy. “Andromache, my dear, welcome back,” he says with a twinkle in his eye. “Shall we begin with your favorite part?” 

Andy rolls her eyes. Nile has heard her complain _many_ times about the prayer. “Alright, let’s get this over with.” 

Nile bows her head and closes her eyes, and in unison, they begin the serenity prayer.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” 

Nile opens her eyes as she says amen, and watches Father Thomas and Alaine cross themselves. Andy’s friend hasn’t moved. 

“Now, is there anyone here for whom this is their first meeting?” Alaine asks. The entire group looks at the man, who looks visibly uncomfortable. 

Andy elbows him, and he gives her a dirty look. 

“You don’t have to share anything you don’t want to,” Alaine says in that gentle, grandfatherly voice of his. “Just your name, if you’d like.” 

He still looks uncomfortable, but he uncrosses his arms. “Sébastien Lelivre,” he says in a gruff voice with a heavy accent. “But everyone calls me Booker.” 

Then he recrosses his arms, clearly finished. 

“Welcome, Booker,” Alaine says, nonplussed. “Now, would anyone like to talk about their week?” 

Nile sits up. “I’ll go.” She usually doesn’t mind speaking first, and she has something she wants to share. “I’m Nile Freeman, and I’m an alcoholic.” 

She pauses as the group choruses, “Hi, Nile.” 

“I’m twenty-seven, and I’ve been sober since December 13th, 2019, which was the day after my birthday. I was in recovery before I relapsed, but I woke up that morning with so much anger and self-hatred. I committed to sobriety once and for all that day.” 

She pauses, fiddling with her cross necklace. “Y’all know I just moved here in August, and I’ve been—” she takes a deep breath. “I’ve been really lonely. I’ve tried to make friends with the people in my program, but all they want to do is go out to bars and clubs and get drinks. And I could go and just drink club soda or water, but I’m always afraid that I’ll cave if someone offers me a drink.” 

James nods. “I’ve been feeling the same way. Like, I don’t go to clubs anymore, so I can’t buy someone a drink and hope that they’ll go home with me. And I feel like a dick approaching people in coffee shops when they’re trying to study.” 

“Right?” Nile rolls her eyes. “It’s like, when did everyone need a drink in hand to socialize? And then I remember, oh, _since the literal dawn of civilization.”_

Alaine hums. “Would you like some suggestions?” Nile nods, and Alaine gestures to the group.

Maxime raises his hand, even though they don’t do that. “Maybe you could find activities that you enjoy and meet people there. Like joining a gym?” 

Jacob nods. “I’ve gotten really involved with Hillel at McGill. They even provide kosher grape juice for me at Shabbat dinners instead of wine.” 

“And, if all else fails,” Ngozi pipes up, “you always have us!” 

Nile smiles at that. “Thanks, y’all. That’s really helpful.” She turns to Marta on her left. “Do you want to go next?” 

Marta nods. “Hi, I’m Marta Levy, and I’m an alcoholic.” 

“Hi, Marta,” they say in return, and Nile settles into her seat to listen. 

— 

When the group breaks so that sponsors can check in with their sponsee, Nile heads to the snack table to doctor a cup of watery coffee. 

Her sponsor is back in Chicago, which is fine. Alaine acts as her surrogate sponsor when she needs it, but everyone else is paired up. Alaine is Father Thomas’ sponsor, and Father Thomas sponsors Maxime. Henry and Walter sponsor James and Jacob, Marta is Ngozi’s, and Ngozi’s is Nat’s, who in turn is Andy’s. 

She gathers four pink sugar packets, aligns them in her hands, and then in a much-practiced motion, she tears all four at once and dumps them into her coffee.

Behind her, someone clears their throat. Nile looks over her shoulder— Booker, who never spoke after introducing himself— is standing behind her. He’s holding the big book in his hands, but somehow he’s holding it like he’s afraid the book will suddenly burst into flames 

“Oh, sorry, I’m blocking the cookies,” Nile says. She picks up her cup and a wooden stirrer and scooches out of the way. 

Booker doesn’t move. He’s just staring at the cookies, like their existence is perplexing.

“Father Thomas makes them,” Nile says because he looks _so_ uncomfortable. “They’re really good. Oatmeal chocolate chip.” 

Booker looks perplexed by her speaking to him. 

“Why do they call you Booker?” She blurts out. She hates awkward silences.

He reacts to that, finally, with a smile— at least, Nile thinks that raw, pained grimace is supposed to be a smile. 

“Because of how many times I was booked when I was younger,” he says, his voice low and rough, like he hasn’t used it in a while. “I was a bit of a juvenile delinquent.” 

Nile blinks. It _could_ be true— he’s got a rough air about him, and his nose is crooked like it’s been broken at least once. 

She eyes him up and down. Then she says, “okay, but for real?” 

He _actually_ smiles, and it transforms his whole fucking face. He looks five years younger and five billion times less depressing. “In school, I always had my nose in a book. And it’s a pun on my last name Lelivre. From French, _the book.”_

Nile’s genuinely shocked that the man actually said more than a sentence. It’s a cute story. She’s proud of her last name— knows that generations ago, a member of her bloodline stood on soil unshackled and _chose_ their name. But that’s heavy shit. Not as cute as _the book._

“You didn’t say much tonight,” Nile says. “What did you think of your first meeting?” 

Booker shrugs. “It was— stereotypical, I suppose. Like what you see in the movies.” 

Nile nods. “Yeah, I thought that too, after my first meeting. I was like, oh, they really say _‘Hi, Nile?’”_ She smiles. “I thought it was corny, at first. But now I love it. It’s—” She searches for the right word. “ _Grounding_.” 

After Afghanistan, after her recovery, in the throws of dealing with PTSD and drinking and sometimes waking up not remembering the night before, Nile thought it was nice to be reminded at least once a week that yes, she was Nile. 

Booker still hasn’t said anything. He hasn’t gotten a cookie yet, either. So Nile continues to talk.

“So why tonight?” She asks, and Booker looks confused. “I mean— why did you come tonight? Why did Andy bring you? What was the breaking point?”

Booker’s face shutters, and he actually takes a step back, like he’s shutting down. 

“Hey—” she says, her brow wrinkling. “You don’t have to tell me. If you want, I can tell you why I went to _my_ first meeting.” 

His eyes flicker to the scar on her neck.

“Yeah, that’s part of it,” she says. “I was a Marine. I was attacked and got sent home. After the recovery, I tried to get my life on track, you know? I went to school on the G.I. bill, tried to be a normal twenty-something. But normal twenty-somethings don’t end up in the E.R. with alcohol poisoning twice in their first semester. They don’t throw up in the middle of church because they’re still drunk from the night before. My mom said I could either go to an A.A. meeting, or my ass would be on the street.” 

She pauses. “The first time around, anyway. It took me a few tries to stick with it.” 

Booker still looks like he’s gonna stay silent, and Nile’s about to go the fuck _off_ because A.A. is a two-way street, but also, you can’t get better if you don’t _want_ to get better, and it sure as hell looks like this Booker asshole doesn’t want to get better.

Nile’s not gonna waste her time with that shit. 

She loves every single member of her little A.A. family because she’s _invested_ in them. She’s invested in their lives, their health, their recovery because they _share_ , and they _want_ to get better. And Nile knows that in return, they’re just as invested in her. That’s the fucking social contract of Alcoholics Anonymous, and she’s about to go full fucking _Leviathan_ on this asshole.

But then Booker’s expression changes— softens, maybe? And he opens his mouth. Then closes it. He does that a few times— like he’s formulating what he wants to say, or maybe that it’s too hard to say— and Nile revises her plan to unleash the ghost of Thomas Hobbes on this pitiful dude. 

Nile can be patient.

Finally, Booker says, “my brother-in-law took my sons away. Said they didn’t deserve to see their father drink himself to death. Said I couldn’t see them again until I was sober.” 

Oh, _damn._ Now that— that’s some heavy shit. There’s breaking points, and then there’s _Breaking Points._ Having your kids taken away? That’s _lower_ than rock bottom. She’s surprised the man is even _here._

She also doesn’t know this man at all, but she quickly revises her opinion of him. He must want to get better. And clearly, he’s willing to share. Maybe he just needs help getting started. 

She takes a deep breath because Booker fulfilled his end of the contract, and she needs to acknowledge that. “Thank you for sharing that with me,” she says, putting as much sincerity as possible into the sentence. “I know your sons will be grateful that you came tonight.” 

Booker scoffs. “J.P. and Sam— my youngest two— maybe. But Ely is fourteen, and I’m afraid I’ve—” he cuts himself off and shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

Nile nods, but she’s racking her brain because she’s heard those names before; where has she heard those names? She heard that Ely is fourteen from—

_Jesus._

No wonder the man looks so fucking depressed. And Joe— holy _shit—_

Nile can’t say anything. Part of the social contract of Alcoholics Anonymous is that you’re just as anonymous _inside_ the group as out. Booker deserves to reveal his wife’s death and the loss of his sons to the group in due time— when it becomes necessary for his journey.

So instead, she says, “fourteen is a hard age.” Which— isn’t the best response but—

What else is she supposed to say?

Booker rubs the back of his neck with his hand. “Yeah.”

From across the room, Father Thomas claps his hand on Andy’s shoulder and laughs loudly in that big, booming laugh of his. 

“You know what I don’t like about this,” Booker says, and Nile looks away from Father Thomas and Andy to see that Booker is looking at them, too. “I don’t like all this religious stuff. Praying and believing that some deity will restore my sanity— I don’t believe in all that bullshit.” 

He looks at Nile’s cross necklace. “No offense.” 

Nile rolls her eyes. “I don’t know how you can talk about step two when you haven’t finished step one yet. You watched as all of us said we were alcoholics, that we’re powerless over alcohol, and you haven’t said jack shit about that yourself.” She crosses her arms. “And it doesn’t have to be _God,_ like the Christian one. Karma could be your higher power. Love could be your higher power. You said you like books. Does a book have the power to restore your sanity?” 

Booker looks taken aback, but he nods, so Nile points at the worn, blue book in his hands. “Then you’ve got your higher power right there.” 

Booker looks down at the book in his hands and doesn’t look back up.

“But it doesn’t matter if you haven’t acknowledged that you have a problem out loud,” Nile says. 

Booker looks up from the book in his hands. He looks so— _weary._

“My name is Sébastien Lelivre, and I am an alcoholic.” 

Nile wants to hug him, but he looks so fragile after saying those four words that hold so much _power_ that all she can do is give him a gentle smile. “Hi, Sébastien,” she says in response. “I’m Nile Freeman, and I am an alcoholic.” 

He blinks at her, and then slowly, he returns her smile. “Hello, Nile.” 

Nile’s smile grows wider, and she turns to the table. There’s a basket of medallions, and she selects one for 24 hours of sobriety. Then, she remembers the man’s bloodshot eyes and what Joe told her this morning. “When was the last time you drank?” 

“Uh, about three a.m.” 

She nods and holds up the medallion. “Tomorrow, we can meet for coffee, and if you stay sober tonight, you can get this coin. Give me your phone.” 

Booker looks like he’s going to protest, but he pulls the phone out of his pocket. 

Nile types in her number and texts herself. “I’ll send you the address tomorrow.” She returns his phone, and he looks at it like it’s a bomb about to explode.

“We only just met,” he eventually says. “And you want to get coffee? Why—”

He’s going to ask _why me,_ and that’s maybe the most depressing thing he hasn’t said all night.

“Because, Booker,” Nile places a hand on his shoulder, and it looks like the man is about to jump out of his skin from that one touch alone. 

“I just became your sponsor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, endless thanks to Marivan, who is an incredible beta and never fails to make me smile. And thank you to everyone for your incredible comments!!! Please leave more they make me so happy. Chapter three will be here soon!
> 
> I spent too long coming up with names for all of Joe's plants, so here's the Joe Plant Cinematic Universe (JPCU): 
> 
> Monstera “the Rocket” Richard, monstera (aka Maurice Richard)  
> Jacques Plante, spider plant (aka Jaques Plante)  
> Palm-K Subban, ponytail palm (aka PK Subban)  
> Guy LaPlante, asparagus ferns (aka Guy LaPointe)  
> Jean Béleafeau, philodendron (aka Jean Béliveau)  
> Carey Price-thos, pothos (mom to Booker’s pothos, Pothos Roy) (aka Carey Price and Patrick Roy)  
> Ken Dra-den, dracaena (aka Ken Dryden)
> 
> I'm not even a Habs fan. Why am I like this.


	3. Step 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Then Booker remembers what Andy told him last night as she gave him a pillow to sleep on her couch. _Look, I know you make one new friend per decade, but there’s one thing standing between you and your sons, and that’s your own fucking stubbornness. Nile wants to help you, so take the help you’re offered._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New tags! The third section of this chapter is very heavy and includes suicidal ideation, so please read the tags. I will post a summary of the third section in the endnotes.

_Step 3: We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God to be._

—

Booker looks down at the address on his phone and then up to the coffee shop. It’s tropical-themed and called _McGilligan’s Island._

Sometimes, he thinks of things to add to Sophie’s eulogy. Joe wrote it because Booker could barely see straight, let alone stand in front of his friends and family to talk about his wife. Joe’s a poet, but he struggled with the eulogy— fuck, of _course_ , he struggled with the eulogy because how could he condense Sophie to one speech?

So Booker thinks of things they left out. Things they should’ve included. He thinks of something new to add every day. 

_Soufia Lelivre née Al-Kaysani loved kitschy coffee shops,_ he’d add. _She couldn’t pass an antique store without going inside. She was hilariously incompetent in a kitchen and loved hockey more than her brother, husband, and three sons combined. She met Marie-Philip Poulin at the Vancouver Olympics and talked about it for the next four years._

_She loved her husband even when he was a massive fuckup._

“Booker!” 

Booker turns, and there’s Nile Freeman, waving at him from across the intersection. 

Last night, he went home with Andy because he couldn’t face another night in his empty, echoing house devoid of his wife and sons— devoid of _life._

Over Quỳnh’s homemade tacos, Booker asked why Andy couldn’t be his sponsor instead of someone fourteen years younger than him and too fucking self-aware and optimistic for him to handle. 

_First of all, I would be a terrible sponsor,_ Andy told him. _And we don’t sponsor friends or family. We get too attached. Let shit slide. It’s better to have someone that doesn’t know you that well, so they can hold you accountable. And Nile will be good for you. She may seem like a kid, but she’s seen more shit than any of us. She’ll whip your ass into shape._

So he’s stuck with Nile Freeman, an American Marine who got him to admit he was an alcoholic within five minutes of speaking to her and who called his bluff on his story about his name. 

Sophie asked him the same question about his name when they first met, and Booker told her the same story about being a juvenile delinquent. Then, with her big brown eyes sparkling like the disco ball hanging over the dance floor of the club they were in, she asked, _what’s the real reason?_

He couldn’t stop thinking about Sophie. 

When Nile said, _you said you like books. Does a book have the power to restore your sanity?_ He immediately thought of Sophie in her hospital bed, so weak, her beautiful curls shorn, as she pressed _The Year of Magical Thinking_ into his hands. 

_It’ll help you, Sébastien, like it helped me,_ she said. _It’ll keep you sane when I’m gone._

“What are you thinking about?” 

Booker startles. Nile’s standing at his shoulder when he could’ve sworn she was across the street a moment ago. “Nothing,” he says. He watches as she drains a large paper cup of coffee, throws it in the trash can, and opens the door to the coffee shop. 

Inside is a mess of thatched grass and bamboo decor, fake palm trees, and calypso music drifting through the air. 

“This place is…” Booker trails off, looking at a row of figurine birds of paradise lining the counter. All the color is a shock to his system. 

“It’s great, isn’t it?” Nile says brightly. “This is my favorite place.” 

She walks up to the counter, where a kid says, “Nile!” 

“Hey, Kini! Can I get a large honeysuckle latte with almond milk? Iced?” She turns to Booker. 

Booker blinks. “Uh, a medium coffee. Black.” 

Nile pays for it, which he protests, but she just gives him a look and leads him to two bright blue beach chairs on an ocean-print rug. 

Booker feels silly settling into the chair. He feels silly even existing in this ridiculous cafe. 

But _God,_ Sophie would have loved this place.

“So—” Nile begins but pauses when the kid brings over two cups of coffee, Booker’s dwarfed by Nile’s. He takes his cup, cradling it in his hands, and eyes hers. 

“Did you not just finish a huge thing of coffee before we came in here?” He asks. 

“Yep,” Nile says. She takes a sip through her straw and smiles. “I’m addicted to caffeine.” 

“Ha.”

“Oh, I’m not joking,” Nile says, even though the smile hasn’t left her face. “Addiction is an illness. It doesn’t go away because I’ve stopped drinking liquor. So my body seeks other substances to provide dopamine. I’m addicted to caffeine and sugar. Some people get hooked on nicotine. For others, it’s porn.” 

Booker chokes on his coffee. 

Nile doesn’t seem fazed. “It’s much better than being addicted to alcohol. I don’t sleep much, but at least I’m not causing irreparable harm to my liver and relationships with my loved ones.” 

_Jesus fucking Christ._ Does she always talk like this? 

Booker has nothing to say, so he takes another sip of his coffee. It’s not too hot, a decent medium roast, and he begrudgingly takes another sip. 

“So,” Nile says. “Did you drink last night?” 

“No.” Then, “Do I get my cheesy coin now?” 

Nile looks unbothered by his sarcastic tone and fishes the coin out of her pocket. He holds his hand out, his palm facing upwards, and winces at how badly his hand is shaking. It hasn’t stopped all morning.

Nile’s looking at his hand, too. She drops the coin into his palm and stands. “Let’s go for a walk.” 

“A walk?” Booker looks around the cafe. “We just got here?” 

“And you’re going through withdrawal,” Nile says, pointing her cup at his bouncing leg. “Alcohol is an addictive substance, which means when you quit, you go through withdrawal. I bet you woke up with a headache worse than any hangover, and you’ve been nauseous all morning. You’ve had cold sweats, too, probably.” 

Well— fuck.

“So we’ll go for a walk,” Nile says, holding out her free hand. “Unless you prefer to sit here tweaking out and shaking like a leaf.”

He looks up at her. She’s still smiling— does she ever stop smiling? Is watching his misery _fun_ for her?

Then Booker remembers what Andy told him last night as she gave him a pillow to sleep on her couch. _Look, I know you make one new friend per decade, but there’s one thing standing between you and your sons, and that’s your own fucking stubbornness. Nile wants to help you, so take the help you’re offered._

He doesn’t take Nile’s offered hand, but he follows her to the door all the same.

—

They walk half a block northeast before Nile sheepishly says that she only moved here in August, and she doesn’t really know any good walking spots.

So Booker takes her to Mt. Royal Park. 

“I can’t believe you haven’t walked through here yet,” he says as they walk along Remembrance road, fallen foliage crunching under their shoes. “I mean, it’s right behind the university— you’re a student, right?”

“Grad student,” Nile says. “Which means I’m either studying, in class, teaching, or studying. I haven’t had much time to explore the city.” 

“What are you studying?” McGill is massive, but he might know her advisor. 

Nile is quiet for a moment. “You know, we’re supposed to be anonymous inside A.A. _and_ outside of it. I’d rather not tell you what I’m studying.” 

Booker watches her. There’s something in the way she’s watching the sidewalk ahead that is unsettling, but he can’t quite place it. 

Maybe she’s studying history and knows that he’s a professor. He thinks about asking Andy, but that doesn’t seem fair. She doesn’t want him to ask, so he won’t. Besides— if everyone is as anonymous as she says, who’s to say that Andy knows?

He pauses before asking, “Can I tell you that I’m a history professor?” 

Nile looks up at him. “I’ll try to avoid Leacock at all costs,” she says. “It shouldn’t be hard since it’s so damn hideous that I find it physically repulsive.”

He laughs out loud at that. “It is awful, isn’t it?” Then he points ahead. “If we go through here, we can go up to Belvédère Kondiaronk. The hike isn’t much, but you can see the whole city.” 

“Well, it’s not like I’m doing anything else,” Nile says. “Lead the way.” 

So they take Olmstead Trail upwards, the paved road lined with red-orange-yellow trees that are beginning to shed.

“‘ _The hike isn’t much,’”_ Nile parrots. “This is like a walk in the park.”

“Well,” Booker pauses and looks around. “I don’t know what you were expecting. This is quite literally a walk in the park.” 

Nile shakes her head. “Yeah, but you said _hike_. I guess I’m just used to hiking being defined differently. You know, more intense.”

“What kind of hikes have you been on?” 

“Well,” she starts. “I did traipse around Afghanistan for a few years. That’s all mountains.”

He stops himself from looking at her neck, from looking at the scar he saw last night. “Well, you know, when I think of places that are similar, my mind goes to Montreal and Afghanistan. They’re nearly identical.” 

Nile turns to face him, so she’s walking backward, and the scar is on full display. “See, where was this funny sonofabitch last night? I’d rather get to know him than the depressing dude who looked personally offended by Father Thomas’ cookies.” 

Booker scowls. “I am not _that_ depressing.”

“Oh, never mind, the depressing dude is back.” 

“Turn around,” Booker says, and his scowl disappears as quick as it came. “I’m not carrying you if you get hurt.” 

“Oh, like you could, old man.” 

“Hey!” He protests. “I’m— I’m not _that_ old.” 

“Yes, you are,” Nile says in a sing-song voice. “How old are you, anyway? Eighty?” 

“Forty-one.” But _God,_ how Sophie used to tease him the same way. He was barely four years older than her, but she talked about how he was practically geriatric compared to her. 

It could be so easy to enjoy this banter. But every quip cleaves his heart in half because the only person he could talk to like this was Sophie. All he thinks is _Sophie, Sophie, Sophie,_ as steady as the rhythm of his footsteps.

Sophie would have loved Nile. They would have gotten along like a house on fire like she did with Nicky. Maybe that’s what hurts so much— that he knows Sophie would be best friends with Nile. She would adopt her into their little Montreal family like she did with Nicky and Andy and Quỳnh. 

Nile said she was lonely last night at the meeting, and Sophie wouldn’t stand for that. She would demand Nile come over for dinner, or she’d take her on a walking tour of all her favorite places in the city. Nobody could be lonely once Sophie latched onto you. 

But Booker isn’t Sophie. He’s not going to be friends with Nile. She’ll help him get better— maybe— and then disappear from his life. And that’s fine. Booker knows he’s a selfish man, but he didn’t ask Nile to help him. He can’t give her anything in return. 

“You’re awfully quiet,” Nile says. 

“I don’t have much to say.” He pauses, thumbing the coin inside his pocket. “What does a sponsor do, anyway?” 

“A sponsor is first and foremost a friend,” Nile says. “My sponsor, Celeste— she’s in Chicago— she told me that a sponsor is one person who understands the situation fully and cares. That they’re the one person that you can talk to without embarrassment when you’re struggling or have problems. Your sponsor provides you with understanding and sympathy and champions you through the twelve steps. They can also kick your ass in gear if you fall off the wagon or relapse.” 

“Have you sponsored anyone else?” Booker asks, and Nile shakes her head. 

“You’ll be my first. Typically, you have to be sober for a full year, which I have been— it’ll be two years on the 13th of December— but I moved here and joined a new group. So— yeah. My first.” 

“But,” Booker scratches at his chin, thinking. “Why sponsor someone? Wouldn’t being around someone new threaten your sobriety?” 

Nile shakes her head. “No, no, it _helps._ It strengthens your commitment. It’s really fucking depressing to see someone where you were two years ago, and you think, shit, I never want to be there again. Or you think, I know so much now that I wish I knew then, and I can really help this guy by sharing. Alaine told me once that sharing sobriety makes it easier to live without alcohol. He said when we help others, we help ourselves, and,” Nile looks at him. “Alaine says sponsoring someone is satisfying. When you assume responsibility for someone who isn’t yourself, you fill this need we all have.” 

“What need?” Booker asks. 

Nile smiles. “To help a friend.”

Booker doesn’t know what to say to that.

“Also—” she starts, then pauses. She fiddles with her necklace, the same cross she was wearing last night. “You know, the twelfth step of A.A. is all about helping others. So I kind of haven’t completed the twelfth step yet.” 

“Oh,” Booker says. They’re nearing the top of the climb, and through the trees, Montreal appears before them. 

“Wow,” Nile says, and she jogs a little to the wall at the edge of the lookout. “Holy shit, you said you could see the whole city, but I didn’t think you could _see the whole city_.” 

He can’t help but smile, looking out over the expanse of the city. “It is beautiful, no?” 

“Not as beautiful as Chicago,” Nile says. “But— yeah. It’s beautiful.” 

When Booker moved to Montreal, he was twenty-one and about to start his Master’s at McGill. He grew up in Rimouski, a smaller city nearly six hours away. He completed his undergraduate degree there because it was cheap and he could live at home. The move downriver changed his life— only a few weeks later, he met Sophie and Joe, who were in their first year at the university.

Once, they climbed these same trails after a night at the clubs. Nicky had joined their trio by then, fresh off the boat from Italy to help run his uncle’s carpentry business in Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie. They were all drunk, giggling and snorting and tripping over themselves as they made it to the top of the mountain in time to see the sunrise over Montreal. 

“You’re smiling,” Nile says. “Wow, I’ve never seen you smile unprovoked.” 

“I remembered something,” he says, looking out over the skyline. “A good memory is all.” 

Nile hums, and he’s grateful that she doesn’t press him to share.

“So, Nile,” he starts. He pauses when she turns to look at him, and he clears his throat. “If you’re on step twelve, what step am I on?” 

She seems to consider it. “Well, last night, you admitted you were an alcoholic, so that’s step one. And you agreed that something greater than yourself has the power to restore you to sanity. So that means that you’re on step three.” 

“Which is…?” 

“We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God to be,” Nile says, and it sounds like she’s quoting directly. 

Booker frowns. “More religion.” 

“Spirituality,” Nile corrects. “It’s a big part of the process.” She turns to him and sits on the stacked stones constituting the ledge. “But like I said last night, it doesn’t have to be the big man in the sky.” 

Booker sits next to her. There’s a family of three across the way. The couple is swinging their son between their arms as he laughs his head off. His stomach lurches, and he feels nauseous. He misses his boys so much. 

“You said it could be—” He swallows around the lump in his throat. His knee is bouncing again. “You said it could be love, right?”

Nile’s eyes meet his, and she nods. “Yeah, it could be love.” 

“I think I could do that,” Booker says. “I think I could turn myself and my life over to love. My family, they just want to help me, right? Because they love me. They would never purposefully hurt me. So I’ll— I’ll turn myself over to love, and it will help me get sober, yes?” 

Nile places her hand on his, and it’s warm despite the freezing weather. She’s smiling, and the weight of her hand stills the shaking. “Yes.” 

—

He wants to continue avoiding the house, but he only keeps one change of clothes in his office, which he changed into this morning.

As he turns onto his block, his hands jammed in his pockets as he walks, he sees Nicky’s familiar blue pickup parked against the curb. 

He starts walking a little faster.

He lets his fingers trail over the peeling logo of Nicky and Sophie’s business on the driver’s side door— _Kaysanova Contracting - Turning Houses into Homes!_

Fourteen months and Nicky still hasn’t peeled it all the way off. 

They made beautiful homes, Nicky and Sophie. His and Joe’s. Andy and Quynh’s. Theirs. _And_ they volunteered extensively with Habitat for Humanity around Quebec. That’s what Sophie loved the most— volunteering to create homes for those in need. Nicky, too— he still volunteers, even after he closed the business.

Now, aside from volunteering, Nicky focuses on custom carpentry. He mostly makes bookshelves and tables and the like. 

_I can’t flip houses without her,_ he said once. _There’s no heart in them. There’s no light._

And fuck, if Booker didn’t understand. Just like he understands not being able to remove a defunct logo from a truck’s door. 

He pushes the door open to see Nicky coming down the stairs, whistling, his tool belt slung around his hips.

“Nicky,” he says, a little out of breath and unable to hide the excitement in his voice. “Are the boys here?” 

Nicky pauses, his hand stilling on the wood railing. “Ah,” he says, his voice so careful. “No.” 

Booker can _feel_ his face fall, and Nicky winces.

“No, no, my friend, do not look at me like that,” Nicky says. “You know I’m powerless against those sad eyes of yours. Sam used them last night for an extra scoop of ice cream.” 

Booker rubs at his face, trying to wipe away the disappointment. “Why are you here, Nicky?” 

“Joe told me you broke your coffee table,” Nicky says. He points over to the living room, where sure enough, a new one is sitting. “No glass this time. And I fixed the towel rack in the bathroom.” 

Booker’s looking over the living room now. It’s completely spotless. All the bottles are gone, the laundry is folded, and the carpet’s been vacuumed. “And you cleaned?”

“And brought groceries.” 

“You didn’t have to do that, Nicky.”

“No,” Nicky agrees. “But I wanted to help.” Then Nicky looks at his watch and shifts uneasily on the stairs.

“What?” Booker asks.

“It’s almost three. I’ve got to—”

He’s got to go pick up the boys from school. 

“I’ll go with you,” he says, and he knows he sounds embarrassingly eager, but he can’t bring himself to care.

Nicky scratches the back of his neck, muttering under his breath in Italian. Finally, he says, “I am not so sure that is a good idea.” His voice is gentle and steady and comforting, the same way he’s spoken to Booker since Sophie first fell ill. 

“What? I’m sober,” Booker says. “Twenty-four hours. I have the coin to prove it.” 

Nicky frowns. “Booker,” he says softly. “Please do not make me say it.” 

Booker can feel his shoulders tensing, his eyes narrowing. His conversation with Nile about love feels so far away now. There’s a doubting voice inside him, one so familiar that he hates, that whispers _if Nicky loved you, he would let you see your boys._

“I thought that was the deal. You and your husband _take my sons away from me_ , and I can’t see them again until I’m sober.” He gestures broadly at himself. “I’m fucking sober, Nicky.” 

“Booker—” Nicky sighs. “Booker. A day— a day is not a solution. It is a bandage. Joe— we— we want to see that you are committed—”

“You know what?” Booker cuts him off. “You know what I’ve been wondering? Who gave you two the _right_ to come into my house and take my boys away. I know you two want kids of your own, but did you have to take mine?” 

“Booker,” he says, and Booker isn’t proud of the way he relishes the hurt in Nicky’s eyes, something latching onto the pain with a greed from deep within. “You don’t mean that.” 

“I want my sons back. You and Joe don’t get to decide where they go and who they live with—” 

“We didn’t.” 

Nicky says it so softly that Booker almost doesn’t hear him. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

“We didn’t decide,” Nicky says, his eyes observing Booker like he’s a wild animal loosed from his cage and ready to attack _._ “Ely asked to stay with us a week ago. He said it would be better for the three of them to be out of the house. Joe talked it over with Andy and me and agreed.” 

It’s like Joe dumped another bucket of ice water over him. Booker stares at Nicky, frozen like a deer in headlights. “He—”

“Ely asked me to tell J.P. it was a sleepover. Like when they stayed last summer while Sophie was going through her final round of chemo.”

Booker doesn’t say anything. 

“He just wants what’s best—”

“Get the fuck out of my house,” Booker says, his voice low, dropping to a register he can only associate with rage.

“Booker—”

“Get. _Out.”_

Nicky’s jaw clenches, and he nods once. Booker doesn’t move out of the way as Nicky pushes past him, and their shoulders knock together.

A thought occurs to him, something that’s been bothering him since yesterday morning, and he turns.

“Who has my car keys, Nicky.” 

It’s not a question. He watches as Nicky’s hand flexes on the doorknob. He _knows,_ he _knows_ that Joe took his keys, and he wants to hear Nicky say it.

“Booker, I love you, but I do not think you want to know the answer.” 

“Nicky,” Booker says, his fists clenching. _“Who has my goddamned keys.”_

Nicky’s green eyes look up, and behind the sheen of tears, there’s an exhaustion, a pain that Booker rarely sees. 

“Ely took them. He was afraid you’d drive drunk.” 

Booker’s face goes slack like he’s been slapped. He feels cold all over like his blood has drained out of him and puddled at his feet. 

Nicky says nothing else. He nods once more and closes the door softly. It’s nothing like Joe’s echoing slam on Tuesday. 

Booker doesn’t know how long he stands there at the base of the steps. 

He recognizes the ugly, vile monster clawing its way through his stomach and at his throat, the one who latched onto, causing Nicky pain. He recognizes the rage simmering below the surface of his skin, stretching it too thin over his bones like he’s going to snap. 

His hands are trembling— his _whole body is trembling—_ and all he can think is this:

_Your son knew you were so fucked up he took your keys away. Your son saw you drink yourself sick and thought you’d get behind a wheel. Your son thought you’d damage the psyche of his brothers. Your son knew to lie to his brothers to protect them. Your son didn’t trust you._

_Your son doesn’t trust you._

_Your son is right._

He wants it to stop. He wants the shaking to stop, the voices to stop, the— _guilt, the constant fucking guilt—_ to stop because _Ely is right._

Ely is _right_ , and Booker _knows_ it. 

_Everyone knows it._

In his mind, he hears cold laughter. It’s the sound of him, drunk and mean and ugly and out of control. 

_Ely and Sam and J.P. would be so much better off with Nicky and Joe_ , the laughing man says, and Booker can see him now, with his cold, bloodshot eyes and the cruel smile on his lips and the bottle in his hands. He looks nothing like himself. He looks _everything_ like himself.

 _They’d be so much happier. So safe, with their stable life and home-cooked meals and laughter and joy_. 

The best thing Booker could do for his sons would be to get out. To get away from them before he causes any more harm. 

All he causes is harm. All he does is damage, and _they’ll just be grateful, they’ll be so thankful if you just give them what they want— what they need— a—_

_A clean break._

No mom dead from cancer. No alcoholic father that can’t take care of them. 

No _trauma_ to tell a therapist in a decade.

Just two loving uncles who will give them the world. 

_Maybe, in time, they’d call them Papa. No, Dad for Nicky. Baba for Joe._

The thought hurts, it _physically_ hurts, like a knife in his gut and glass in his throat. He just wants the pain to stop for _one fucking second._

And he _knows_ how to make the pain stop. He hates himself for it, but he hates the pain more. 

He’s trembling as he climbs the stairs, tripping over the top step and falling. He pulls himself up, and he can _feel_ the acid of panic rise in his throat. He stumbles over to the liquor cabinet that Nicky built and wrenches the door open with shaking hands. He hates himself, he _hates_ himself, but he _just wants it to stop._

He uncaps the first bottle he sees, a half-empty bottle of rum, and downs the rest of the liquor in one go. 

For a moment, the pain stops. 

He exhales, his eyes closing in relief.

 _You fucking piece of shit,_ the monster roars back just as quick. _You couldn’t even make it a day. You will never see your sons again because you have no self-control. You only care about yourself, you selfish piece of shit._

God, why won’t it just stop? He _needs it to stop._

He knows he’s crying. He can taste the salt on his lips alongside the rum. He can’t stop crying, he can’t stop shaking, he can’t stop _breathing, even though everyone would be better off if he did._

Booker lets the bottle fall to his feet, and it lands with a soft thud on the carpet. He reaches for the next bottle— any bottle— and uncorks the Cognac his uncle got him to celebrate his successful dissertation defense.

It’s a nice bottle. Vintage. From France, too. It must’ve cost Oncle Jean a lot. It’s meant to be decanted and sipped slowly and enjoyed for years.

He takes two deep swigs, draining the bottle, barely tasting it save for the familiar, comforting burn in his throat, satiating the monster begging for more, _more, more,_ or the shakes will come back, the voices, the _guilt always the fucking guilt—_

He shakes the bottle above his mouth, desperate for one drop, just one more drop, _please, just one more—_

None come, and Booker throws the bottle at the wall. 

He can’t even hear the crash. He can only watch as the glass breaks into sharp fragments, glittering on the floor like freshly fallen snow, and _oh,_ the shattering feels so familiar. 

His hands come to his hair, pulling. _«I’m sorry,»_ he says in French, to no one, to _everyone._

_«I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.»_

He sinks to his knees and begins to sob.

Just like the shattering of the bottle, this too feels familiar— comforting. 

After all, he’s been here so many times before. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary of the third section: Booker arrives home to find Nicky in his house. Booker is excited because he thinks Nicky has brought his sons home. In a heated exchange, Nicky reveals that Ely-- not Joe, as Booker thought-- requested to leave Booker and took his car keys. Booker then spirals into a panic attack and relapses. 
> 
> Thank you thank you thank you to Marivan who is the world's greatest beta. And thank you thank you thank you to everyone who has followed along and commented. This chapter and the next chapter are rough, but it's always darkest before the dawn. 
> 
> McGilligan's Island does not exist (as far as I know). It is based on SOS Tiki Bar and Truett's Luau in Atlanta. Someday I will move to Montreal and start an island-themed cafe. I did make a lil postcard for it, [which you can find on my tumblr.](https://flawlessassholes.tumblr.com/post/646666388512145408/postcard)


End file.
